There are different methods for forming clad metal, such as a plate of stainless steel clad with aluminum. In one method (U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,558, Hirobe, et al.), sheet metal cladding is fed onto one or both faces of the hot solidified continuously cast strip being withdrawn from the casting means and the assembly is then passed to a hot roll bonding system for cladding. Another method (U.S. Pat. No. 4,966,748, Miyasaka et al.) produces a clad metal by forming a layer of dissimilar metal powder on the surface of a base metal by cold fixing the powder to the surface under pressure, densing only the surface and a subsurface area of the layer of the dissimilar metal powder by melting and immediately solidifying in a vacuum, compressing the layer of the dissimilar metal powder together with the base metal at a temperature not higher than the solidus-line temperature of the two dissimilar metals under a pressure of not lower than 300 kgf/cm2 using a hot isostatic press, and hot working the layer of the dissimilar metal powder together with the base metal.
Ceramic to stainless steel and ceramic to titanium bonds are particular examples of ceramic to metal bonds. Braze bonding, for example, aluminum oxide and zirconium oxide ceramics to metals, including titanium, stainless steel, molybdenum, tantalum, and cobalt-chromium alloys, can be done using a braze, comprising 30% nickel and 70% titanium (U.S. provisional Patent Application, Ser. No, 60/126,531; PCT Application WO00/56677). Another example of a braze bond includes the preferred method for joining zirconium oxide containing 3% yttrium to preferably a metal alloy, namely, titanium and niobium (55% Ti and 45% Nb), using the nickel-titanium braze (50% Ni and 50% Ti) (U.S. Provisional Patent Application, Ser. No. 60/126,514; PCT Application WO00/56395).
How can a high temperature brazing operation for joining metal and ceramic be made compatible with the further low temperature joining of two metal surfaces, these two metal surfaces having a relatively low melting temperature?